THE COWBOY SKIP.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1359, 11 May 1916, Page 34

THE COWBOY SKIP.

JACK MARTIN ON COWBOY STUNTS. Jack Martin, playing this week at the Opera House, has worked in almost every branch of the show business, from vaudeville to the legitimate; from circuses to moving pictures. Indeed, many of the earlier Bison films featured some of his rough riding and fancy roping. Speaking of lassooing, Jack Martin says the toughest proposition he has on the stage is the “Cowboy Skip,” when, with lightning movement, he hops in and out of a whirling rope. A rope whizzing at that rate means a nasty burn if it touches the skin ever so slightly. If it hits the face full it means probably a complete knock-out, and there has been an occasion when Martin was unconscious for 15 minutes as the result of an accidental blow. It took him two years to learn the trick at which he is now so adept that he works in the narrowest of stage space. Martin holds the American championship for horse lassooing. Using a 40-foot lariat he held up eigh horses at once without hurting any one of them. By hurting he means the burning if the lariat should strike the outer horses whilst still whirling. Once a horse is “burned” this way he will fight shy of a rope for ever.